Attitudes of Non-String Playing, Pre-Service Teachers towards Teaching Strings

The purpose of this study was to investigate attitudes of instrumental pre-service teachers, whose primary instrument was not a bowed string instrument, towards teaching strings. Nineteen Music Education majors enrolled in a required string methods class at a mid-western university answered open-ended questions designed to elicit attitudes and confidence towards teaching strings. The pre-service teachers were comfortable with limited string teaching, specifically, teaching one string class only as a part of a teaching position that involved primarily teaching band. Responsibility for a string program was outside the comfort zone of most pre-service teachers. Students felt their greatest strength was general musical ability, and greatest weaknesses were lack of knowledge about stringed instruments and ability to perform on these instruments. An important finding is that many of the students who had already completed the string techniques class still felt they lacked sufficient knowledge and technical ability to teach strings. Future investigtions are necessary to discover if these are wide-spread attitudes and whether they can be affected by classes, observations, and/or field experiences in an orchestral setting.